By now House of the Dragon fans are used to tense, slow-burning episodes full of intrigue, meaningful glances, and muttered secrets. That’s all well and good, but we’re here for one thing that’s right there in the show’s title. And let’s just say it isn’t houses…
Fortunately, season 2 episode 4 – ‘The Red Dragon and the Gold’ – didn’t disappoint. After watching Daemon trip balls in a haunted castle for a bit the ball began to roll towards an epic conclusion as Criston advanced on Rook’s Rest.
With his troops in the open Rhaenyra was eager to incinerate them with dragonfire, though Rhaenys and Melys stepped up to take the mission. She wiped out the army, only to find herself unexpectedly going toe-to-toe with a drunken King Aegon aboard his dragon Sunfyre. As if this wasn’t dragon drama enough Aemond and the colossal Vhagar entered the fray, resulting in a three-way dragon face-off. A “dance” if you will.
No dragon flew away unscathed, but only Aemond came off unharmed. Vhagar suffered some brutal chest wounds from Melys, Rhaenys and Melys plunged to their deaths after Vhagar chomped through its horned neck. And the King and his dragon? They plummeted into the forest below. The last we saw of Sunfyre he was barely alive, with King Aegon’s status unknown.
What the show tells us
It’s difficult to see exactly what’s happened to Sunfyre in the show, but judging from the sounds he certainly didn’t sound like he was flying away anytime soon. It’s also unclear whether Aegon is alive. We see Aemond approaching him with his sword drawn, though his motives are ambiguous.
The usual rule of thumb in TV and movies is that if you don’t explicitly see a character dying they’re probably still somehow alive. As we don’t see Aegon actually dying and as Sunfyre is clearly alive as the credits roll, we’re confident we haven’t seen the last of them. That said, both are seriously injured, perhaps permanently so.
But we have another source, though this is riding straight into spoiler country so beware.
What happens in the book?
In George R. R. Martin’s Fire & Blood Sunfyre has one of his wings almost torn off in this battle and the crash grievously injures King Aegon. Aegon is rushed to King’s Landing to be healed, but Sunfyre is simply too big to be moved back home. As such he’s cared for by Criston’s men where he fell, first being fed with the bodies of soldiers and then on calves and sheep.
Sunfyre does eventually recover from his injury and is even able to fly, though his bone is set at an awkward angle and he’s relatively clumsy and uncoordinated in the air. We don’t know if House of the Dragon will be completely faithful to the original story, though we wouldn’t be surprised to see these story beats happen on the show soon.
